Put a thousand fruit flies in a box and you can watch the entire circle of life, played out in multiple generations, in a matter of days.
Now, stand back far enough to view the entirety of human existence in one box and the objective eye will discern no greater purpose than the fruit fly. We live, we reproduce, we die. All of human evolution and technical advancement bent to the simple purpose of continuing to exist.

We are ultimately seperated from the fruit fly by one thing; a simple question,
"Why?"

The contemplation of our own mortality is undoubtedly the single factor that has inspired us to become more than the sum of our individual lives. The yearning to outlive ourselves, to defy the inherent pointlessness of existence, to deny the emptiness of the void that precedes us and remains, undisturbed, after we're gone. The human defiance of the finity and futility of life drives the greatest achievements of our species.

Humanity, alone among the animals of the earth, has taken the gifts of evolution and harnessed them to scream its answer to the empty cosmos with soul wrenching achievements of art and philosophy. Those creations of mankind that we experience as a feeling, rising up from inside us and overwhelming our minds with a beauty and perfection far greater than ourselves.

The great accomplishments of mankind that elevate the purpose of our existence:
The philosophy of Aristotle
The architecture of Angkor Wat and St. Peter's Basilica
The art and discovery of Leonardo Da Vinci
The grandeur of the Sistine Chapel and the humble beauty of Van Gogh
The feets of engineering; the great wall of china and Apollo moon landing
All the great works of the most inspired among us, who could encapsulate beauty, wonder, humor and tragedy into discrete works of brilliance:

Shakespeare, Sophocles, Mark Twain, Hemingway, Kepler, Gödel, Newton, Hippocrates, Bach, Wagner, Coltrane, Hume, Kant, Descartes, Tesla, Gutenberg, Frank Lloyd Wright...
...and Bill Murray.

Except for his work on Garfield.
That movie was fucking horrible.

my secret is crumbs and ashes.

as i'm having a cigarette, sometimes instead of flicking the ashes into the ashtray, i flick 'em into the potted plant's soil.

and occasional little crumbs, like if i'm having toast or something, i'll crush up between my fingers and into the dirt.

anything that will rot, without stinking.
circle of life. ashes to ashes.

circle of life.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Civilization was nice while it lasted.

eh we had a good run.


Circle of Life.

Harvest what you can. http://videosift.com/video/Organ-Donor-PSA-rips-your-heart-out

Green burial the rest -- wrap in a shroud and throw me in the ground. Cardboard box optional. Let what is left of me feed some plants. Circle of life. (The mushroom burial suit would be cool. http://videosift.com/video/TED-Jae-Rhim-Lee-My-mushroom-burial-suit)

A lot of my family is buried in the same cemetery in Frederick OK. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, great aunts and uncles, cousins. A whole slew of relatives, all together. My parents have a double headstone with my brother's and my name already cut into the back, along with the grandkids' names. I figure that is my headstone, no matter where my bits and pieces are buried.

I always thought headstones were gross. But now I do take comfort from going to visit my mom. I never bring flowers. I bring a mini-Snickers bar and a quarter. She didn't care for flowers. She loved Snickers and playing the slot machines in Vegas, back when you actually used coins. So I take great delight in burying a candy bar and a quarter whenever I visit her.

Death is about life. Someone's life. You find ways to celebrate their life.

I have found that many of my animations deal with death as a theme. The sift has very few 'sad' channels, and many of our videos have the subject of death, the macabre, and other final endings in them - including music about loss of life (death metal works too), and nature 'circle of life' videos.

'Dark' is not enough to classify a lot of my posts, and death seemed to be the largest theme in my collection.
I'm definitely not looking to start posting glaringly obnoxious killing spree videos, as I would not allow those either. I thought that since there is so much life here, we should have the opposite dark, poetically deathly side.
(my attempt at a definition, btw.)

Holy crap that sky burial is amazing. Photos were a little graphic for my taste, but what a great circle of life way to be re-absorbed into the collective.
>> ^zor:

To up the weirdness, they could mix it with a version of this: http://mbvtravel.com/burials-in-tibet-not-for-sensitive-souls

It was already funny, but the Circle of Life tag made me LMFAHS.

I'm pretty sure that's not helping the "Circle of Life".

I fail to see the issue here. Milk comes from fun-bags, and we buy it at the store in bags. It's the circle of life.

I would hardly call what I've done here as begging. I do think that his original ban was justified, but I don't think it should be a personal ban rather than a account ban. Why do we ban? To protect the integrity of the sift, would be my answer. We do that by stripping the powers, not by stifling comments.

I think it has been farcical that kronos and blankfist has had to be the personal punishers of choggie, but I suppose there's a lot of bad blood there.

If he cannot behave under a new guise, then I'm all for making it permanent, really permanent, but until then, I don't think his new personas have really broken any rules at all, they've just been banned because it's choggie - I don't like that.

That's it.

>> ^campionidelmondo:
>> ^gwiz665:
The thing is, that if he is allowed to return we will be monitoring him and if he gets any smart ideas we do have hobble available and if it comes to it, we can always ban again and say the experiment failed.

And then a couple of months after banning him again, people can start begging for his return again. And thus, the circle of life continues...

>> ^gwiz665:
The thing is, that if he is allowed to return we will be monitoring him and if he gets any smart ideas we do have hobble available and if it comes to it, we can always ban again and say the experiment failed.


And then a couple of months after banning him again, people can start begging for his return again. And thus, the circle of life continues...

Ahhh....how wondrous and beautiful nature is.

Here we see the rare and unusual mating dance of the North American Suburban Bro. See how the male of the species displays his thick skull to his prospective mate. It looks as though this courtship has been successful and soon these two Bros will begin their mating in earnest.

The circle of life continues.

Gore is a self-anointed figurehead in what I deem one of the biggest hoaxes perpetrated on the human race. He deserves to be targeted as he targets others. He was a "C" student who originally took environmental classes because they were easier. His crockumentary has been seen by many more people than have read Lomborg's tome, and "An Inconvenient Truth" has been soundly thrashed for numbers 1-6 listed (except perhaps for plagiarism).

It's simply telling that Gore won't debate, when infinite resources are at his disposal for such an undertaking.

The greenvangelicals are beyond reason on the GW issue and the politicians love AGW because it gives them the omnipresence of God without placing any moral authority higher than their own. At last they have a way to link all their schemes in a unifying "circle of life".

The sun is responsible for heating up the earth as well as other planets which have no SUVs as of yet. Man tried to create his own paradise via 'Biosphere II' and nearly suffocated the inhabitants. If they can't mix the proper ratio of gases in a bubble, do you really think these international goofballs can "fine tune" a planet's weather?

>> ^NobleOne:I am a firm believer that if you were to have nanobots they would have been produced naturally kind of like white blood cells... I can't see how nanobots is an evolutionary trait....we are meant to live and meant to die....thus continues the circle of life... oh and if you want to work on your neurons in your brain just go get high....take the time and read about pot or watch.... http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Union-The-Business-Behind-Gettin
g-High-1
oh and side note shrooms regardless of where they grow are natural not man made...



I can certainly understand people only wanting "natural" things in their bodies, I just happen not to share that desire. I can think of plenty of natural things that will kill a person (or worse).

I am concerned more with safety and effect than I am with origin. If one of my major organs began to fail then I would not hesitate to replace it with an artificial version (if available).


You also claim that death is a part of the "cycle of life". Would you feel the same way if death were optional? Would you choose to die prematurely to continue the cycle even if living longer did not require artificial means?

Eventually natural death will be "curable". Maybe we'll be alive to see it, maybe not. It will happen though (assuming no cataclysms) and people will have to deal with these questions. Some will opt out of extended life and others will not, but I do believe that the decision should be up to each individual.